Glycosaminoglycans derived from K5 polysaccharide having high anticoagulant and antithrombotic activities and process for their preparation

Abstract

Glycosaminoglycans derived from K5 polysaccharide having high anticoagulant and antithrombotic activity and useful for the control of coagulation and as antithrombotic agents are obtained starting from an optionally purified K5 polysaccharide by a process comprising the steps of N-deacetylation / N-sulfation, C5 epimerization, O-oversulfation, selective O-desulfation, 6-O-sulfation, N-sulfation, and optional depolymerization, in which said epimerization is performed with the use of the enzyme glucoronosyl C5 epimerase in solution or in immobilized form in the presence of divalent cations. New, particularly interesting antithrombin compounds are obtained by controlling the reaction time in the selective O-desulfation step and submitting the product obtained at the end of the final N-sulfation step to depolymerizazion.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION [0001] This application is a divisional of application Ser. No. 09 / 950,003 filed Sep. 12, 2001, which in turn is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 09 / 738,879 filed Dec. 18, 2000., claiming priority of the Italian application No. MI2000A000665 filed on 30 Mar. 2000.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] Glycosaminoglycans, such as heparin, heparan sulfate, dermatan sulfate, chondroitin sulfate and hyaluronic acid, are biopolymers industrially extracted from different animal organs. [0003] In particular heparin, principally obtained by extraction from intestinal pig mucosa or bovine lung, is a mixture of chains consisting of repeating disaccharide units formed by an uronic acid (L-iduronic acid or D-glucuronic acid) and by an amino sugar (glucosamine), joined by α-1→4 or β-1→4 bonds. The uronic acid unit may be sulfated in position 2 and the glucosamine unit is N-acetylated or N-sulfated and 6-O sulfated. Moreover, glucosamine can contai...

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Benefits of technology

[0019] More particularly, it has surprisingly been found that, if in step (iv) of the above process the selective O-desulfation of the product obtained at the end of step (iii) is carried out in a mixture dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) / methanol for a period of time of from 135 to 165 minutes at a temperature of 50-70° C., new glycosaminoglycans of heparin-type are obtained, said glycosaminoglycans having an anti-Xa activity at least of the same order of standard heparin and a global anticoagulant activity, expressed for example as aPTT, lower than that of standard heparin, a Heparin Cofactor II (HCII) activity at least as high as that of standard heparin and an anti-IIa (antithrombin) activity much higher than that of standard heparin, said novel glycosaminoglycans also having a reduced bleeding risk in respect of commercial heparin. Furthermore, it has been found that by carrying out step (iv) under the above-illustrated conditions, the biological activity with low bleeding risk of the compound obtained at the end of step (vi) is maintained after depolymerization, said activity of the depolymerized product being expressed by a very high antithrombin activity, anti-Xa and HCII activities of the same order as that of standard heparin and a global anticoagulant activity lower than that of standard heparin. Thus, by carrying out step (iv) under these controlled conditions, it is possible to overcome the above-mentioned disadvantages of the known processes and to obtain new glycosaminoglycans, having improved and selective antithrombin activity, useful as specific coagulation-controlling and antithrombotic agents.

Problems solved by technology

The products obtained according to this method lack a considerable amount of N-sulfate groups, lost during the O-sulfation.

The products obtained according to this method have the disadvantage of lacking either O-sulfate groups when the optional O-resulfation step (f) is not performed, or N-sulfate groups, which are lost when step (f) is performed.

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